


Pas de Deux

by oliverwoodswh0re



Category: Cats (2019), Cats - Andrew Lloyd Webber
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:21:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27087043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oliverwoodswh0re/pseuds/oliverwoodswh0re
Summary: What happens when Mistofelees DOESN'T bring back Old Deuteronomy? The threat of Macavity hides behind every corner, the Jellicle choice hangs over the heads of all, but when Munkustrap is needed most, he finds himself lost in a certain white queen's allure ...---Couldn't find enough Munkustrap/Victoria content, and as much as I love Victoria/Mistofelees they're supposed to be siblings so kinda weird. Kinda follows the movie, but I'm a fan of the musical so it will stick to the musical at parts.This is my first EVER fanfiction so please be nice!!
Relationships: Munkustrap/Victoria (Cats)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16





	Pas de Deux

The midsummer heat seemed to sink down with the last vestiges of dusk, settling over London with the finality of some unseen grandiose stage curtain, and flooding every last alley and crook with its velvet heaviness. Munkustrap lifted one silver paw and groomed his thick tabby fur for what felt like the dozenth time that evening. As he settled back into place on the lid of the rubbish bin, the night air wavered with heat once, twice, and then was still. The last purple remnants of the sunset slid below the horizon, cloaking the alleyway in indigo-hued nightfall just as the soft movements of cats down below him slowed to a lazy stop. The air hummed with a silent but palpable excitement. Another night of waiting for the Jellicle Ball had begun.

It seemed to him, however, that the excitement of the annual Jellicle Ball faded every year, as with each passing year he accepted more responsibility and leadership roles within the Jellicle tribe. And yet it certainly wasn’t without its merits, Munkustrap mused languidly; with more work came even more benefits, stronger connections with every cat in the tribe, the chance to tread step-by-step alongside Old Deutoronomy, and the admiration of a few queens, more than he could have ever hoped for as a kit. Munkustrap twitched his tail tip in amusement at the last thought. Who could have predicted that the solemn stoicism and protectiveness he had been teased relentlessly for in his youth would end up as his most respected and admired traits?

No, surely the extra attention from queens came from his overprotectiveness and firm guidance of the kittens, he corrected. And he _did_ do an excellent job with the kittens, training them, protecting them, and reprimanding them when they got into their usual mischief. Sudden flashes of the kittens botching his annual performance of _The Battle of the Pekes and the Pollicles_ burst into the fore of his mind, which he shook away quickly. The play would go smoothly this year, it had to, he had rehearsed with the kittens for the past 2 months, and Pouncival had finally gotten the hang of his lines …

Suppressing a sigh and trying to block horrible thoughts of another miserable performance, Munkustrap glanced down at the tribe of Jellicle cats beneath him. A sudden surge of pride and ownership ballooned in his chest, gazing over each and every cat that he cared for and fought every day to protect. Cassandra and Demeter lay side by side, grooming each other softly, while Tumblebrutus, Electra, and Etcetera had finally settled down from their earlier playing and were nestled softly against one another, dozing in and out of sleep as they awaited their first Jellicle Ball. In the shadow of a packing crate, the magical young tom Mistofelees was quietly rolling his wand between his paws, and Rum Tum Tugger’s arrogant amber eyes followed his movements with vaguely bored interest. Everywhere, outlined in the soft golden flicker of the Russell Hotel down the block, Jellicle cats revelled in each other’s companionship as they awaited the beginning of the biggest night of the year.

And as quickly as it had come, the swell in Munkustrap’s chest popped. While the respect of each and every cat was wonderful, the trust of Old Deuteronomy an honour, and the occasional flirtation with the queens a welcome bonus, it was incredibly lonely to be the sole guardian of the Jellicle tribe. There was no friend to sit and groom with, no one to murmur with quietly but excitedly as the ball drew ever closer, not even a spot of friendly gossip. For Munkustrap, there was only a great sense of duty and a mournful longing for something that would never quite be there. He was the provider and leader, not the confidant or close friend, and that would never change until the day he went to the Heaviside Layer.

A sharp flick of Tantomile’s ear dragged him from his haze of thought. The twins Tantomile and Coricopat were known for having a keen sense for the psychic, stronger even than the usual feline perceptiveness. Munkustrap watched as Coricopat raised his gaze into the night cautiously, and took a perfunctory sniff of his own.

The static monotony of the night air had ceased, dissolved by a low but oddly exhilarating buzzing that swept through Munkustrap’s ears and shifted his whiskers uneasily. There was something approaching, what it was he couldn’t tell yet, something that was unfamiliar to the Jellicle world. One by one, the cats below sensed the shift in the air, and began to lift their heads in wary interest. Demeter, the most skittish queen, was the first to jump to her paws, hissing softly as the sound of an approaching vehicle became apparent. The gathered cats scattered quickly, darting behind the tires and discarded cardboard boxes decorating the alley and echoing hasty spits of warning. Munkustrap rose, knowing he could not move from his vantage position as the chief protector, and slowly raised his hackles just as a car turned the corner, bathing the small space with harsh white headlights. The car trundled slowly towards him, and as the light grew blindingly brighter, the stars seemed to extinguish above, and the thick chemical scent of gasoline curled into Munkustrap’s nostrils and constricted around his throat.

Finally, the car’s menacing progression halted, and the black passenger door opened. One adorned heel slipped out, and suddenly a human was marching towards Munkustrap with vociferous determination. Munkustrap’s growl rose deeply from his throat as he unsheathed his claws, preparing to defend his tribe, but faltered with surprise as he noticed a burlap sack in the human’s hand, seemingly thrashing and writhing as if it had a mind of its own. As the human drew closer, too close for comfort, Munkustrap realized with horror that there was a _cat_ in the bag. Just as the human’s stench became overwhelmingly thick and Munkustrap had resolved to leap and attack, the bag dropped with a sickening _thud_ , and the human turned and stormed back to the idling car. As the car backed away down the alley, the other Jellicles emerged from hiding, still hissing with unease at the squirming bag, but Munkustrap knew he could not tear his gaze from the retreating car until the threat was confidently gone.

With a final awful screech of metal and rubber, the car rounded the corner and was gone as quickly as it had come, leaving the flailing sack and the lingering stench of gas as the only hints it had been real at all. As the stars revealed themselves again and the warm glow from the Russell Hotel leaked into the alley, Munkustrap ripped his eyes away from the street level and down to the scene below with horrified disgust. He had lived through this moment too many times before, and yet every time, the abandonment of a cat to the cold streets of London never failed to leave him feeling sick to his stomach. He was lucky to have an owner that didn’t mind (or perhaps even notice) his constant wanderings off - his collar served as a constant reminder of that privilege - but he had met many, too many of his fellow Jellicles in this exact manner. The cats below were beginning to circle, yowling and swatting at the increasingly frantic bag. Munkustrap leapt swiftly down to the ground, pushing Alonzo and Plato briskly out of the way, and with a single claw, deftly sliced through the bag.

A tense silence swept through the alley, so different from the comfortably idle one just a few minutes prior. Munkustrap trained his gaze unblinkingly on the tear, waiting on the cat within to emerge. A strange, split-second sensation of incredible familiarity hit him in the face, one he had never known or felt, before a single ivory paw emerged and caused his breath to hitch in his chest.

She stood with uncertainty, but an air of bold self-assurance and inquisitive poise that radiated outwards, almost propelling the surrounding cats backwards. Her sleek fur was pure white, a small stain of soft snow in the bowels of the heat-laden city, and Munkustrap shivered slightly as though a winter storm had suddenly struck. By a quick taste of the roof of his mouth, he could tell she was just past the precipice of adulthood, untouched but ready to be.

He felt he had known her all his life.

Munkustrap had just over the blink of an eye to somewhat compose himself from the events that had happened so quickly his head was still reeling, before unsettlingly blue eyes locked on him. Perhaps it was entirely the wrong moment to realize that he had been wrong, she wasn’t spotlessly white, but had tiny gold and grey leopard markings around her small pink nose. He was entirely disarmed. She seemed so _familiar_ , almost as if she had been a Jellicle cat this whole time and he simply hadn’t noticed her before, and at the same time an entirely new species he had never encountered in his life. He felt like a cat in water, completely caught off guard, as though he had fallen into her shining sapphire eyes and couldn’t climb out.

Struggling to kick his mind into sharper focus, and increasingly aware of the tribe’s confused eyes following him, Munkustrap turned and jumped quickly, with a hint of ungainliness that he knew wouldn’t go unnoticed by certain attentive queens, onto a rusty car frame. He hoped the height would shake him into his familiar leadership persona as he turned to face the crowd of cats, forcing himself to look back into her bottomless blue pools, and praying he didn’t drown. Knowing he had to begin the tribe’s inquiry of her, he took a deep breath and commanded in what he hoped was his most assertive voice.

“Are you blind when you’re born?”

To his relief and somewhat discomfort, realizing she would have noticed his lapse in demeanor, Cassandra continued his question.

“Can you see in the dark?”

As the rest of the Jellicles began to join in the querious song, scrutinizing the new cat’s prowess as both feline and dancer, Munkustrap felt himself slipping into his element again. She was just another strange new cat, he resolved, certainly nothing he hadn’t dealt with before, and this resolution banished the last nudges of uncertainty rattling in his head. He was with his tribe, in his alley, on the eve of the Jellicle Ball, and no cat, breathtaking or otherwise, could take that away from him. A spontaneous desire to show off his home streets to this picture of innocence overtook him, and Munkustrap began to lead the dance out of the alley and into the streets of Soho. He noticed with a leaping thrill of pleasure that she was an astonishingly good dancer, perfectly en pointe and with a fluid grace he had never seen in any cat. Quashing the niggling thoughts in his brain that whispered _Show off your dancing_ , he managed a cheeky grin and nod of his head at her as he led the troupe into Piccadilly Square.

At last unable to resist some slight showing off, Munkustrap landed a triple _entrechat_ , and as Cassandra and Demeter joined his side, felt a strange sort of savage pleasure in the idea that she might think he was a popular object of female attention. Leading the charge up the fountain in the middle of the square and hoisting himself easily to the apex of the Winged Statue, Munkustrap felt her scramble up quickly beside him, his spine rippling subconsciously at her closeness. As the Jellicles sang of unashamed felinity, he lowered himself to look her closely in the eyes, watching as she followed the words he sang, switching her gaze between his eyes and his mouth and twitching her ears happily.

Fearing he would get lost in her again if he didn’t tear himself away, Munkustrap slid down the fountain and led the Jellicles into the streets again, singing proudly of the types of Jellicle cats and pleased to keep her close to him as he showcased the many fantastical cats of the tribe. With his ears still ringing with an unbridled joy in being near her, Munkustrap’s courage tore through his veins, and he brazenly lifted her easily and gracefully into the air. She smiled as he set her down gently, and he basked in the warming approval of her smile, like a windowsill on some spring Sunday to doze in all day. With brief jarring displeasure and slight worry that he had even felt displeased at all, Munkustrap watched Mistofelees whisk her away affectionately to sing of magical cats. He suppressed a slight growl in watching her share that same radiant smile with Mistofelees and not he, and quickly spun her back to his side to sing of mystical cats.

Munkustrap felt he might burst from such an untamed jubilee he had never felt before. It was forced to come to a screeching stop when he smelled a rank and familiar scent: Macavity. Knowing the danger of the criminal and exploitative cat and the pressing need to get everyone to safety, Munkustrap quickly ushered the cats off the streets and into the nearby graveyard, paws tingling with regret that the seemingly magical moment had to end so soon. As the young white cat rushed to the gateway behind the rest of the tribe, Cassandra and Demeter blocked her entry before Munkustrap could get there first.

“What’s your name?” Cassandra asked sinuously, ears flattened.

The white cat paused for a moment, innocent eyes wide with a combination of awe and fear.

“Victoria.”

Her voice chimed out like the bells of St. Paul’s cathedral, silver in the moonlight and settling deep into Munkustrap’s bones. The sound felt like swallowing ice, and sent an unwitting shiver of pleasure down his spine. Padding over and sending the queens scattering with a swift stare, he began to explain the proper naming of cats.

“A cat needs a name that’s particular,” he explained mysteriously, perching on a fallen tombstone and watching her blue eyes track his lips once again, “a name that’s more peculiar and dignified.”

Victoria lifted herself up to sit close to him, hanging onto his every word with intense intrigue as though he was keeping her alive with each syllable. Her eyes brimmed with an unspeakable fascination, and he took secret delight in filling her mind with cat names the likes of which she had never heard in her young life. It was inundating his senses with a yearning to touch her, an insatiable desire to be near her and bring her into his world that was so different and distant from the one she knew.

And so he did just that. Standing and extending one paw to her, he pulled her into a hold against him, the beginning of a moonlit _Pas de Deux_ like he had never experienced. Dimly aware of the tribe cats surrounding them attentively, Munkustrap felt sparks course through him at every point of contact with her body. Victoria seemed to mold into his touch in a way he had never experienced with any other cat, seemed to know how he would move her before he did. Every worry or dutiful thought he had ever entertained slid out of his mind like silk, and he found himself entangled in Victoria’s world, not his own. In that blissful moment, as she illuminated the tombstones around them with her brilliantly white fur and delicate turns, Munkustrap hesitantly wrapped her paw in his and pressed her cheek to his, pulling their intertwined paws close. He could feel every whisker of hers beside him, the softness of her fur, the swish of her tail against his. Her breath was warm and sweet, charming him into the security of her nearness and coaxing him to give up everything he had built, everything he had earned, just to be by her side forever. Munkustrap had never felt so alive. With great difficulty, he forced himself to break contact with her, backing away and leaving her to perform for the tribe, knowing they had been too close for too long.

As he watched her dance between shifting moonbeams a little too intensely, Munkustrap felt he had found his way home at last. And he knew it would bring him nothing but trouble.

**Author's Note:**

> First chapter is super similar to the movie I know!! It will diverge in a little bit. For now, this is just a retelling from Munk's POV. Thanks for reading!


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